Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Daughter Indicted for Alleged Money Laundering

The daughter of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s controversial former pastor, has been accused of laundering money in an alleged $1.25 million fraud led by an ex-police chief in Illinois.

Jeri L. Wright, 47, was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday for allegedly accepting $28,000 from former police chief Regina Evans and her husband, ex-police officer Ronald Evans, for Wright’s supposed work related to the Evanses’ not-for-profit program called We Are Our Brother’s Keeper. Approximately $20,000 of that money, however, found its way back into bank accounts controlled by the Evanses, prosecutors said.

According to a release from the Department of Justice, Wright was playing a part in a scheme by the Evanses to misuse a $1.25 million state grant that had been awarded to the not-for-profit program in 2009.

We Are Our Brother’s Keeper was supposed to spend the money on training up to 40 participants in bricklaying and electrical work at a Regal Theater also owned by the Evanses, but the indictment alleges that “little, if any, of the training provided in the grant agreement was ever completed.”

The Evanses have been charged with more than 10 fraud-related counts. In addition to the alleged money laundering, Wright stands accused of making false statements to federal law enforcement officers and lying to a grand jury. If convicted, Wright could face potentially decades in prison.

Regina Evan’s attorney has reportedly claimed the couple didn’t do anything wrong. Jeri Wright could not immediately be reached for comment.

In March 2008 ABC News reported inflammatory, anti-American comments made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright during his sermons at Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side — sermons long-attended by President Obama in the years before his election.

Among his more controversial comments was his claim that the U.S. was to blame for the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks “because [of] the stuff we’ve done overseas.”